Manufacturing Safety Manager Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

As an Operational Safety Manager - US, you will play a critical role in ensuring the safe execution and oversight of Wayve's on-road testing and robotaxi operations. You will be responsible for monitoring safety performance, investigating incidents, and maintaining operational safety standards across a rapidly scaling environment.

This role places a strong emphasis on Safety Assurance - ensuring that risks are visible, continuously understood, and acted upon in real time. You will operate as an independent safety function, providing oversight of field operations, identifying emerging risks, and ensuring that safety processes are consistently applied.  The operational safety team acts as a continuous check and balance on the rest of the organization, ensuring that Wayve's plans and objectives are met in the safest manner possible.

You will work closely with engineering, fleet operations, and global safety teams to ensure Wayve's deployments are safe, compliant, and defensible within US regulatory frameworks (e.g. DMV, NHTSA), while contributing to a strong, proactive safety culture.

Key responsibilities:

• Safety Assurance & Monitoring
• Monitor daily safety performance across, Fleet operations, R&D testing and other deployment activities
• Track and analyse safety performance indicators, trends, interventions, anomalies and other vital metrics to analyze the validity of our safety case and implement suitable operational controls or risk mitigation strategies accordingly
• Incident response and investigation
• Lead and support investigations into on-road incidents and near-misses, preparing incident reports, conducting structured root cause analysis activities and preparing summaries for engineering and executive management stakeholders alike
• Prepare suitable analysis for all investigations to ensure findings and corrective actions are clearly documented, actionable, and fed back into engineering, operations, and risk management work plans
• Support regulatory and partner reporting requirements where applicable
• Safety Risk Management
• Carry out hazard identification and risk assessment activities to support on-road operations and testing activities
• Maintain and update operational risk registers
• Support implementation of risk controls and monitor their effectiveness
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Work closely with engineers, operators, and global safety teams to align on best practices.
• Safety Culture & Training
• Develop and deliver training programs, prepare and update risk assessments, and drive a strong safety-first mindset across operations.
• Champion and advocate for safety outcomes across all activities

In order to set you up for success as an Operational Safety Manager at Wayve, we're looking for the following skills and experience.  

Essential 

• 5+ years experience investigating incidents in a fast-paced, safety-critical environment
• Experience in operational safety, risk monitoring, or safety assurance roles in a fleet, logistics, field engineering or operational environment
• Strong analytical mindset - able to interpret data, identify patterns, derive insights and present to a range of audiences from engineering to management
• Demonstrable ability to operate independently and make sound safety judgments
• Good understanding of industry-relevant standards and guidelines (e.g. AV, automotive, or similar)
• Experience with human factors, including workload, attention, and driver/operator interaction risks
• Ability to develop and implement safety processes and procedures

Desirable 

• Experience with autonomous vehicle or ADAS testing and development
• Experience of automotive, aviation, defence or manufacturing safety management systems
• Understanding of US autonomous vehicle regulations (e.g. CA DMV, NHTSA) and reporting requirements
• Familiarity with automotive systems, electronics, and safety implications
• Experience supporting robotaxi or ride-hail operations

This role is a full-time role based in Sunnyvale, CA (hybrid) and the reasonably estimated salary for this role ranges from $135,000 to $200,000, plus a competitive equity package. Actual compensation is based on the candidate's skills, qualifications and experience.